In many types of surgery, a surgeon performs a bone cut to a patient's bone to achieve one or more surgical goals. Total Knee Arthroplasty (TKA) is presented as an exemplary surgical procedure, in which a distal femur and proximal tibia are cut using an oscillating saw to prepare the bones to receive respective implants. In this example, the cutting tool is an oscillating saw blade 100 (as shown in FIG. 1), which may be a single-use, pre-sterilized component, comprising a cutting feature 102 (e.g. saw teeth) and an attachment mechanism 104 providing an interface to couple to a power tool. The cutting feature is typically defined by one or more surfaces of the cutting tool, often located at or along an outermost surface of the cutting tool. The surfaces may be located at an end of the cutting tool such as in the oscillating saw blade 100 as shown but not necessarily so. An assembly comprising a power tool 200 and an oscillating saw blade 100 is illustrated in FIG. 2. The power tool provides the mechanical actuation to move the oscillating saw).
Positional accuracy of cuts to the patient's bone (e.g. relative to anatomical planes, weight bearing axes, other cuts) may be important to a successful surgical outcome. For example, in TKA, having a well-balanced, well-aligned knee is dependent on implant positioning, which is dictated primarily on the position of the cuts to the patient's femur and tibia. These cuts may be guided by the positioning of cutting jigs relative to the anatomy.